My favorite time of year with so many must-watch, drama-filled games, three weekends in a row that I can give my full attention to. Pro football at its finest, even though I did prefer the old Wildcard format with only six teams total per conference, which disappeared due to NFL greed. I also miss the days of the 1pm and 4pm starts, but I guess I must adjust to this new crazy world.
Before I get into the stats, I would like to give a big THANK YOU to the recent winners who have given back some of their cash prizes in the form of a tip to me and Mark for our ‘dedication and hard work’ (their words, not mine). Your generosity is much appreciated, and I wanted to put that into words for all to see.
Moving on… in our second year with six games, we had SEVEN(!) members go 6-0 this weekend! That is impressive, especially when you consider the fact that not one person did it last year, and only two members had 11-points. This time around, there’s NINE(!) with 11, nineteen with 10, and twenty with 9-points that follow closely behind the leaders. Lots of points being scored right off the bat!
On the flip side, we had only three members throw up goose eggs but 22 people who didn’t make any picks at all. Apparently, some people don’t ever read my emails… owell.
I won’t take that personally as it’s obviously their loss, especially since they paid to be part of this “small” playoff pool that “only” gives out $5,250 to the top 6 finishers.
($1500, 1250, 1000, 750, 500, and 250).
Overall, the 203 active members scored 1346 points, which averages out to 6.63 points per player – wayyyy better than last year when we averaged 4.47 points per player. Great start guys and gals!
$500 BONUS ELIMINATION POOL (plus an additional $50 of leftover money)
Twenty people were still alive after 5 weeks, so to the playoff tiebreaker we go! The first step was “your two assigned 3-point games, head-to-head” — of which 12 of the 20 got them both correct, meaning 8 people were already knocked out. Then came “your two assigned 2-point games, head-to-head (obviously)” – of which, only three people got those both correct as well (DWORDEN76, MANUFACTURED OUTRAGE, and SCOTTGILBERT). And finally… “your two assigned 1-point games” – and this when a winner gets crowned… DWORDEN took LV for 1-point in the first game of the weekend (didn’t cover, even though they had soooo many chances to do just that) and SCOTT took PHI for 1-point in the first game on Sunday (didn’t even come close to covering, down 31-0 in the 3rdquarter, and they’re lucky to have scored at all). And after the Rams took care of AZ on Monday night, that gave MANUFACTURED OUTRAGE his 6th win afor the weekend and he’s now the BONUS POOL Champion. Well done my man! For a visual representation of this finale, please see the BONUS KEY sheet found on the STANDINGS page.
OVERALL STANDINGS: The Overall top 10 going into the playoffs shifted slightly after the first round of games. JGILLESPIE478 extended his lead from 1-point to 3, CHEF PAT and SEANB4848 dropped down after only getting 4 of 12 points, while CHRIS BARBAS made the biggest jumped from 7th to 4th after his 6-0 weekend.
ROOKIE RACE: CHRIS BARBAS went from being in 2nd place, down 1-point after the regular season, to 1st place and up by 7-points over CHEF PAT for the same exact reasons as described in the above paragraph… 12 points to only 4 with the current total being 167 to 160.
COMBO RACE: I hate to do it, but I’m must… Horse CHEF PAT (sorry duder) and jockey J. HODGE went from being in 1st place and up by 7-points after the regular season, to 5th place and down 4-points. The two new hot teams are DWORDEN76 / TRABS and CHRIS BARBAS / MARK T as they scored a combined total of 20 and 22 respectively. Also in the mix are MATTANZALONE / NLIQ33, along with MITSY THE GREEK / BAGGYPANTS who round out the top five with the wins being 313, 313, 312, 312, and finally 309. Clearly this is a close race!
VETERAN’S POOL: JGILLESPIE478 still leads with his 176 wins. No surprise there…
With 22 more points available over the next few weeks, it’s truly anyone’s title to take in all five races… Overall, Rookie, Combo, Veterans, and Playoffs!
And more thing to note: please do NOT wait until the very last minute to make your picks. It really leaves us no time to adjust if there’s any issues. All the charts are done manually and everyone who works at the FTPL likes to watch these games (and of course get drunk) so having to field calls, emails, and texts right before kickoff is frustrating and stressful! Not cool!
Good luck y’all!
Dan